Logan jolted awake, his heart racing and sheets tangled around his legs. The remnants of his dream clung to him like cobwebs – a sprawling city of impossible architecture, gears grinding against a shattered sky. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to shake off the lingering unease.
“Get it together, Walker,” he muttered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “It’s just a dream.”
But as he shuffled to the bathroom, the dream’s details refused to fade. He could still hear the rhythmic ticking of a thousand clocks, still smell the strange mix of oil and ozone that permeated the dream-city’s air. It had felt so real, so vivid – more like a memory than a product of his subconscious.
Logan splashed cold water on his face, then looked up at his reflection. For a heartbeat, he could have sworn he saw something move behind him – a shadowy figure, there and gone in an instant. He whirled around, but the bathroom was empty.
“Coffee,” he decided, his voice sounding too loud in the quiet apartment. “I need coffee.”
In the kitchen, Logan’s hand hovered over the coffee maker. After yesterday’s weirdness, he was half-expecting it to start spouting poetry again. But the machine remained stubbornly silent as it brewed, producing nothing more mysterious than his usual morning caffeine fix.
As Logan sipped his coffee, he pulled out his phone, scrolling through his playlists. He needed something normal, something to ground him in reality. He hit play on his favorite running mix, then frowned. The song that came through his speakers wasn’t anything he recognized – a haunting melody with lyrics in a language he couldn’t identify.
“What the hell?” Logan muttered, checking the screen. According to his phone, it was playing “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. He skipped to the next track, but instead of his usual workout jam, he got what sounded like whale songs remixed with industrial machinery.
Logan tossed the phone aside, unnerved. He’d deal with the apparent possessed playlist later. Right now, he needed something solid, something undeniably real. He grabbed the newspaper from his doorstep, settling back at the kitchen table with a sigh of relief. Good old-fashioned print media – no glitches or haunted playlists here.
But as he read, Logan felt his grip on reality slipping once again. The headlines seemed to shift and change every time he blinked:
“MAYOR ANNOUNCES NEW TRAFFIC LIGHT SYSTEM”
*blink*
“CHRONOVORES DEVOUR DOWNTOWN, MAYOR URGES CALM”
*blink*
“LOCAL DOG ELECTED MAYOR, PROMISES TREATS FOR ALL”
Logan threw the paper down, his heart pounding. This couldn’t be happening. He was losing his mind, that had to be it. Maybe he’d been exposed to some kind of hallucinogenic toxin on a call yesterday? But no, Ramirez would have been affected too.
A notification chimed on his discarded phone. Logan picked it up warily, half-expecting it to bite him. It was an email from an address he didn’t recognize: [email protected]. The subject line read: “DON’T OPEN THE BLUE DOOR.”
Logan’s thumb hovered over the delete button, but curiosity won out. He opened the email:
“Hey past me,
I know this is going to sound crazy, but you’ve got to listen. Whatever you do, DON’T open the blue door. You haven’t seen it yet, but you will. When you do, run. Run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. The fate of Kronos depends on it.
P.S. Pet Roscoe for me. I miss that furry little genius.
-Future You”
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Logan stared at the screen, his mind reeling. This had to be a prank, right? Some elaborate hoax? But who would go to all this trouble? And how did they know about Roscoe?
Speaking of Roscoe, where was the little mutt? Logan whistled, frowning when he got no response. “Roscoe? Here boy!”
He found the terrier in the living room, sitting unnaturally still in front of the TV. The screen was off, but Roscoe stared at it as if watching the most riveting show of his life.
“Roscoe?” Logan said softly, kneeling beside his dog. “You okay, buddy?”
Roscoe’s head swiveled towards him, and Logan gasped. The dog’s eyes were glowing with a soft blue light, pulsing in a rhythm that matched the ticking of the wall clock.
“Oh, this is bad,” Logan muttered, backing away slowly. “This is very, very bad.”
The glow faded from Roscoe’s eyes, and the terrier shook himself as if coming out of a trance. He looked up at Logan and let out a very normal-sounding bark, tail wagging.
Logan laughed, the sound edged with hysteria. “Right. Okay. My dog definitely wasn’t just possessed by the ghost of electronics past. That would be crazy.”
He needed to get out of the apartment. Maybe some fresh air would help clear his head. Logan grabbed Roscoe’s leash, trying not to flinch when the dog trotted over as if nothing had happened.
Outside, the world seemed determined to challenge Logan’s already tenuous grip on reality. The sky above Charleston was its usual blue, but if he looked at it from the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw swirling galaxies and nebulae.
As they walked, Logan’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, seeing a text from an unknown number:
“The gears are slipping, Walker. Time is running out. Find the blue door.”
Logan stared at the message, a chill running down his spine. The blue door again. What the hell was going on?
A voice from nearby startled him out of his thoughts. “…telling you, man, it’s like the whole city is changing overnight!”
Logan turned to see two men standing on the corner, deep in conversation. He slowed his pace, straining to hear.
“You’re crazy,” the second man was saying. “Charleston’s been the same since I was a kid.”
“No, listen,” the first man insisted. “Yesterday, I could have sworn Fort Sumter was on Sullivan’s Island. But this morning? It’s back in the harbor where it’s supposed to be. And nobody seems to notice!”
“Maybe you just had one too many at the bar last night,” his friend laughed.
Logan hurried past, his mind racing. He wasn’t the only one noticing these changes. But why? What was happening to his city?
As if in answer to his unspoken question, a gust of wind blew a newspaper against his legs. Logan bent to pick it up, intending to toss it in a nearby recycling bin. But the headline caught his eye:
“TEMPORAL ANOMALIES ON THE RISE, EXPERTS BAFFLED”
Logan’s hands shook as he read the article. It spoke of time distortions, reality shifts, and something called “chronal bleed.” But the most chilling part was the last paragraph:
“While most citizens remain unaware of these anomalies, a small percentage of the population seems to be ‘temporally sensitive,’ able to perceive changes that others cannot. These individuals report feeling increasingly disconnected from reality, experiencing vivid dreams of other worlds, and in some cases, developing unexplained abilities.”
The paper slipped from Logan’s numb fingers. This couldn’t be real. It had to be some kind of elaborate prank, or a vivid hallucination, or…
Roscoe’s bark snapped Logan back to the present. The terrier was straining at his leash, ears perked towards something across the street. Logan followed his gaze and felt his heart skip a beat.
There, nestled between a coffee shop and a boutique that Logan could have sworn weren’t there yesterday, was a door. A blue door.
Logan’s phone buzzed again. With a sense of creeping dread, he looked at the screen:
“Don’t open it. Not yet. You’re not ready.”
He looked back at the door, then down at Roscoe. The terrier met his gaze, and Logan could have sworn he saw understanding in those canine eyes.
“What do you think, buddy?” Logan asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Should we see where it goes?”
Roscoe’s response was to plant his furry behind firmly on the sidewalk, refusing to budge an inch towards the blue door.
Logan laughed, some of the tension leaving his body. “Yeah, you’re right. Better safe than sorry. Let’s go home.”
As they turned to head back to the apartment, Logan couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just narrowly avoided something momentous. But the relief was short-lived. Because as he glanced back one last time, the blue door was gone as if it had never been there at all.
And in its place was a poster, its edges curling in the breeze:
“LOST: One reality. If found, please return to Kronos. Reward offered.”
Logan blinked, and the poster vanished, replaced by the familiar storefronts. But the damage was done. He’d seen it, and now there was no going back. Something was very, very wrong with the world, and somehow, Logan Walker was right in the middle of it.